Sunday, 30 June 2013

3-Channel Split Screen HD Film Projection (9 x 2.5m)
(A single version is also available for cinema screenings)

16:50 min

Short Abstract

An experimental film on the topic of Polish identity caught up in the polarised narratives of nationalism and religion. Dipping in and out of bombastic political commemorations and the elusive remains of multiculturalism, we ask, what alternatives can we construct?

Long Abstract

The events surrounding the Smolensk catastrophe saw the polish ex-president Kaczynski equated with Jesus, and Poland became the blood-sodden ground of the forgotten innocent howling for revenge! Although this tired image of Poland is something that sickens most young Polish people today, the dramatic events of the nation's past have been drummed into it's subconscious to such a degree and with such poetical furore, that an alternative is very difficult to construct. "The Others" takes the footage and expands or displaces it somewhat across three screens. The subtitles linger a little longer than the images, the screens switch on, change, move, and although a traditional narrative is still kept within the film, the triptych highlights not only the fictional nature of the documentary, but of national identity in general. Rather than facilitating the desired return of a "true" national past, the re-enactment of myths and narratives through poetically-infused remembrance days, paradoxically highlights the fictitious nature of a nation's identity. As such - in this constant process of self-fictionalisation, in a pendulum between the East and West: Can Poland's attempt at self-definition be seen as emancipatory reminder, that the 19th century Western concept of "nation" and the East-West hierarchies on which the country currently depends on, are based on fiction? In this light, can new narratives be created? The film ends with two groups holding flags. The three little pigs, blank faced, bereft of a stage script, wait for the story to begin...

Friday, 15 February 2013

For the Rundgang exhibition of 2013, the class for Intermedia showed an installation entitled “Work”. The spatial installation, which also took place within the original class room, dealt with the theme of art education today and focuses on its practices and strategies. It was based on a type of analysis and reflection about one’s own actions and transforms conversations, in part individual words as well as snippets of conversation and the resulting issues that arise in the context of teaching, into an audio-spatial-sculpture. The starting point of this work was the question: How is an art-theoretical discourse run today? What are the assessment criteria? To what extent can a work be analysed? Is it at all desirable to dissect visual works verbally, or does the theoretical analysis detract from the core, the essence, that which emotionally touches us? So how does reflection and communication function in the art world? To “see” as a child of the light and therefore the opening of the visual world, which the students of an art academy deal with, as well as its opposite: “darkness” are the media of the installation.